Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:9). What was the tree of life? What is its significance for you and me?

The tree of life did not have special powers. Its fruit and leaves were not medicinal. It was a tree representing life. John Calvin indicates that it was a “symbol and memorial” (Commentary Upon the Book of Genesis, 1:116). The tree had the character of a sacrament. God “intended, therefore, that man, as often as he tasted the fruit of that tree, should remember whence he received his life, in order that he might acknowledge that he lives not by his own power, but by the kindness of God alone” (Calvin, 117).

But it was not only Adam’s physical life under God to which this tree pointed. Geerhardus Vos indicates that “the principle of life in its highest potency [was] sacramentally symbolized by the tree of life” (Biblical Theology, 27). He adds, “The tree was associated with the higher, the unchangeable, eternal life to be secured by obedience throughout [Adam’s] probation” (Vos, 28).

In other words, the tree of life pointed to a higher life in what we call heaven. The tree of life pointed Adam to the possibility of this higher life of greater and unchangeable perfection in closer communion with God. As Vos again teaches, “The Reformed view fixes its gaze upon something higher. It sees man not as being placed in eternal bliss from the beginning, but being placed in such a way that he might attain to eternal bliss” (Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, “The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology,” 243). The presence of the tree of life held out this possibility.

Why did God place Adam in Eden with the tree of life? Francis Turretin, who followed Calvin in Geneva, answers, “God wished in every age to have a church in which he might dwell and which might cherish communion with him for the fruition of happiness” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2:174). It was always God’s purpose to dwell with men and women and for them to find fullness of life in Him. Turretin goes on to say, “It pleased [God] to institute that communion in no other way than that of a covenant” (174). The first Adam failed in the first covenant, the covenant of works. We’ll take a look at this in the next column. God then made a second covenant, the covenant of grace, through Jesus Christ, the second Adam.

Through Jesus Christ, you look forward to life in glory with God. There you will dwell in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1–3). You will drink of the water of life and eat of the tree of life in the city of God. In that city, there is no longer any curse, and God Himself illumines the city (Rev. 22:1–5). Abraham knew this vision: “He was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). This was God’s plan from the beginning.

In the midst of economic and political turmoil at home and continuing war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, you must live in the light of God’s eternal purpose to dwell with you and to lift you up into glorious communion with Him. You must live, as Abraham lived, in the protecting shadow of the tree of life.

—Dennis J. Prutow